Further, she said, the council recognised the changes its building team was making to its processes were distressing some in the Waitaki building industry.
''We recognise [the council's effort to meet its statutory responsibilities] is causing concern in some parts of the building industry, however, safety and compliance is essential and we will continue to work with the sector to manage expectations and deliver a service that our community deserves,'' Mrs Guyan wrote in an email.
Last month, the Otago Daily Times reported 130 members of the Waitaki building community met councillors and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials to address the frustrations as the council implemented changes stemming from last year's building consents audit by International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ).
The council had added two staff members to its building team this winter to deal with the new processes and its increasing workload, but is now advertising to replace a senior building control officer who left after joining the team in July.
Mrs Guyan said ''the loss of key experienced staff who left last November'' had affected the building team's progress.
''We are working hard to meet the standards, however, we are still a considerable time away,'' she wrote.
Oamaru building industry leader Michael Forgie declined to comment on the building industry's concerns with the changes in council's processes.
''As an industry we are working collectively with council senior and regulatory services management and it is our preference to maintain this line of communication, as opposed to doing this through the media, given this I confirm that at this stage I have no comment,'' he wrote in an email.
Mrs Guyan said the building team would need ''correct processes in place by February 2017 to provide the auditors sufficient evidence that we are following the documented process''.
''We know what we need to address as a result of our June 2015 audit.
''We are also aware of results from other Building Consent Authority audits which we use as a guide to improve our own processes.''
At the weekend, the Otago Daily Times reported the Queenstown Lakes District Council had been given approval to continue issuing building consents by IANZ.
